UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide and the International Criminal Court Prosecutor: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Palestinian People

On Friday, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber 1 ordered court administrators to establish “a system of public information and outreach activities for the benefit of the victims and affected communities in the situation in Palestine.”

The Pre-Trial Chamber is a panel of judges that supervises how the ICC prosecutor’s office carries out its investigative and prosecutorial activities. It has the responsibility to guarantee the rights of suspects, victims and witnesses during investigations by the prosecutor.

The court will also create a page on its website “especially directed to the victims in the situation in Palestine.”

The decision facilitates the gathering of evidence that could be used in indictments or trials of suspected war criminals.

little has been said about the almost complete destruction of Gaza’s industry and economy. As the Israeli Minister of Interior Eli Yishai said, the objective of the last operation was to “send Gaza back to the Middle Ages, destroying all of its infrastructure.”… These attacks – against factories, farms, farming equipment and homes – were not by chance or accidental. These attacks demonstrate once again that the target of the genocidal Israeli colonialism is the Palestinian people itself, and that the war that has been waging the last 66 years, under cover of Europe and the US, is against a nation, Palestine, that they seek to wipe off the map.

In the past few decades, at least 280,000 olive trees have been intentionally destroyed in Palestine by Israel; an estimated 250,000,000 pine trees have been planted, some financed by well-meaning but uninformed people, but most by the Israeli government. It is likely that most of the people around the world who have sent money to have them planted are unaware of their real purpose; who is going to think of genocide, when planting a tree in memory of a loved one?

In light of recent flyering campaigns done by Aryeh: Columbia Students Association for Israel (formerly known as LionPAC), in which they use the image and words of Martin Luther King, Jr. in favor of their Zionist views, we as the Columbia University Black Students’ Organization, write to condemn their co-optation of Black liberation struggle for the purposes of genocide and oppression and we re-proclaim our unequivocal support of Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace – Columbia/Barnard Chapter, and the people of Palestine in their fight for freedom from Israeli apartheid.

There is a growing momentum and tide within the world of culture for example, amongst well known sports people, celebrities, musicians, actors and comedians. From Selena Gomez to Mark Rufallo, Penelope Cruz, John Cusack, John Legend and other high profile celebrities all come out during Israel’s attacks on Gaza, using social media and other platforms, on the issue of Palestine. Some have tweeted #FreePalestine while others have gone further in slamming the Israeli attacks on Gaza as a “genocide”. And the number that have joined the boycott of Israel is growing on a daily basis.

The groundswell of support for the Palestinian struggle and BDS campaign, coming from all quarters of the academic and cultural community and even major corporations, in many ways is a result of the practical, strategic and goal-orientated boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) of Israel movement that is capturing the world by storm. BDS offers a non-violent route and path for us to channel our energies.

“Ten… It’s the number of the wars on Gaza since 2001; the most enduring genocide in the history of mankind.”

In collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, As-Safir newspaper launched an international campaign under the name of “GAZA Put into Words” in a press conference held at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut on Wednesday February 18, 2015, under the patronage of H.E. Mr, Roni Araiji, Minister of Culture and the presence of H.E. Mr. Ramzi Joreige, Minister of Information, H.E. Mr. Elias Bou Saab, Minister of Education and Higher Education and H.E. Mr. Mohamad Fneish, Minister of State, in addition to a number of diplomats and media representatives.

After the press conference the “GAZA Put into Words” photo exhibition was launched and continued in UNESCO until Saturday February the 21st. The main idea of the project is to reveal the unknown stories of Gaza in Palestine hidden behind numbers and letters, in the past and in the present. The tragedy of Gaza (and of Palestine as a whole) did not start in a summer morning in 2014; it goes back more than sixty years.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, two weeks ago, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, addressed the United Nations calling “to define red lines beyond which an intervention would be necessary to stop acts of genocide”… Simply put, Rivlin is calling for the restriction of the definition of genocide, so that Israel may be excused… Though there’s ample reason for Rivlin to try and spin “Never Again”, the accusations of genocide are still far and in between. In fact, In my last article in this series, I tried to unravel the realpolitik which leads the United Nations to serial inaction in the case of Palestine. In the last week however, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in events, subtle as they may seem… Last week, to much media fanfare, William Schabas resigned from the commission. The reason apparently being Israel providing the Human Rights Council with “incriminating” information…

Tuesday 27th January marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of the largest mass murder in history. The service in Bradford was a very inclusive event involving members of all faith groups with community representatives from the Gypsy Roma and LGBT communities. Seventy candles will be lit across the UK to mark the occasion and this year’s theme is “Keep the memory alive”. Commenting David Ward MP said:

“On Holocaust Memorial Day it’s imperative that we share the memory of the millions who have been murdered in the Holocaust and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Palestine, Bosnia and Darfur in order to challenge hatred and persecution wherever it resides today.

The commemoration provides an opportunity for everyone to pause and take a moment to really think about lessons from the Holocaust, and subsequent genocides in order to ensure, where possible that such atrocities cannot happen again and help create a safer, better future for us all.”

On the 7th of April 2004, then United Nations Secretary General to the Commission on Human Rights, Kofi Annan, launched his Action Plan to Prevent Genocide… In my series of articles about Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, I tackle this assertion through different aspects of prevention mechanisms that have been put forth by the United Nations, such as The Convention of Prevention of Genocide, the UN Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide statements, and other reports and documents. In this article, I’d like to discuss Annan’s plan, which is an overarching document and a promise of the UN to endangered communities that asses the dangers as they happen, and to bring it to task about its inaction to prevent Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian People.

The Guardian Australia reported the 1 million-strong rally in Paris that was led by leading figures in the US Alliance: “Here were some of the most powerful people on earth jostling for space in the Paris boulevard named after Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer, historian and advocate of freedom of religion and speech. The leaders then set off, arm in arm, Hollande in the centre, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to his left. To his right, Ibrahim Boubacar Këita, the president of Mali – where French troops intervened to push back Islamist forces in 2013 – the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and the British prime minister, David Cameron. As they marched, the crowds that lined the route broke into cheers and applause” (see “Paris anti-terror rally: all religions, ages and nations in a massive show of unity”, The Guardian Australia, 12 January 2015).

What hypocrisy by these leaders and the covering media. Thus rally-attendees Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and David Cameron are major players in the post-1990 Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide in which 12 million Muslims have been killed by violence or by violently-imposed deprivation and Western governments of the US Alliance in 2015 are variously bombing and killing Muslims from Mali to Pakistan (Google “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”). Apartheid Israeli prime minister and rally-attendee, Binyamin Netanyahu, is key figure in the ongoing Palestinian Genocide in which 2 million Indigenous Palestinians have been killed by violence (0.1 million) or by violently-imposed deprivation (1.9 million) since 1936 and of about 12.5 million Palestinians, about 6.5 million are prevented from even stepping foot in their own country, 4.3 million are held hostage without human rights in West Bank mini-Bantustan ghettoes or in the Gaza Concentration Camp, and only 7%, the adults of 1.7 million Palestinian Israelis, are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of Palestine, albeit as Third Class citizens denied even freedom of speech under Nazi-style Israeli Apartheid laws.